The Adventure begins in Wales

Tuesday 28th May 19

Fred and Kevin’s flights arrived from USA early morning, so an early start for me too to pick them up at 9am at Heathrow. Took them back to my house and then lunch at our local pub and a chance for them to practice drinking English real ale 😁 

The bikes were delivered at 1pm as planned; a Suzuki Vstrom for Fred and a BMW GS 650 for Kevin.. so far so good 👍I dropped them at their hotel to freshen up and arranged to meet later in the pub across the road for dinner and more beer drinking practice and meet up with Jon who lives locally. Tomorrow we ride 😎

Wednesday 29th May19

The plan was to have the bikes loaded and be ready to leave when Jon & Pete arrived. By 9.30 we were ready to head off to Wales. The weather forecast was for rain in the West..that’s where we are heading!

The morning traffic was light, but then we hit a massive jam on the A40 just outside Oxford; they were resurfacing the road and it was covered in loose gravel and clouds of dust. We managed to squeeze slowly between the long line of stationary traffic on our side and the oncoming cars and lorries..not a good start.. then the rain started! I had warned our American friends to bring their waterproofs, just as well! Jon was more worried about his shiny chrome Bonneville cruiser getting dirty 🤣

The rain continued and got heavier as we entered Wales and started to cross the Brecon Beacons; most of the hills were covered in low cloud and mist which apart from obscuring the picturesque scenery made it difficult to see the sheep and lambs scattered all over the roads😱I had planned an open air lunch stop in the Brecons, but this was abandoned in favour of a warm pub 👍

We dried off a bit and then set off again in the rain. After a short distance I pulled into a garage for a petrol stop and realised there was no one behind me.. then Pete came up and said Fred’s bike had broken down a mile back down the road! Back we went to find the others huddled around Fred’s bike by the side of the road in the pouring rain.. the bike would turn over but would not start and the dashboard display was all garbled; apparently it had just cut out and stopped .. Hmmm, maybe all the rain had got into the electrics? We took off the seat to find the fuze box and found the fuze feeding the fuel pump had blown; we put the spare in and it blew immediately, even though the ignition was switched off.. definitely something wrong with the electrics we decided. 

So there we were somewhere in the Brecon Beacons in the pouring rain totally screwed 😱. I urged my fellow travellers to remember that “It’s an Adventure, not a holiday “ but it seemed to fall on stony ground 🤣😎

We decided to transfer to the garage up the road to figure our next move out of the rain. Fred called the bike hire company to explain what had happened and the only option was to call the recovery company.. but where would we have the bike taken too? Some quick googling established that the nearest Suzuki dealer was in Swansea, an hour or more away from us in the wrong direction. The recovery people said they would be about 90 mins before arrival. 

One immediate challenge we had was trying to explain where we were; not that we didn’t know, it was just that we couldn’t pronounce the name of the place .. Ystradgynlais. Well you try it 🤣

After a bit more googling we found another Suzuki dealer in Newtown, about 20 miles North of our hotel in Rhayader. A call to their service dept ascertained that they would be prepared to take a look at it in the morning. We arranged with the recovery company for Fred and bike to be taken to our hotel that night and then on to the Suzuki dealer the next morning. So the immediate crisis was over and the concern now was would the dealer be able to fix the bike so Fred, Kev and I could catch the ferry to Ireland the next morning to continue our planned trip?

Finally the breakdown vehicle arrived.. massive flatbed vehicle just to recover a motorbike! The guy looked a bit worried how he would be able to tie the bike down. Him and 4 of us managed to push the bike up the very slippery ramp, while I took the photos (age has its privileges).

With the bike secured it was time for the rest of us to carry on our ride to our hotel. By now it was gone 5pm and the planned route was abandoned, so the quickest route to Rhayader was plugged into the Sat Nav.. 70 miles across the Brecon Beacons and about 90 mins .. off we went again into the rain. To keep the troops motivated I urged them to think about the beer and the curry when we arrived 😎

On the other side of the Brecons the rain had stopped and the roads were dry. We arrived at the hotel around 7.30 pm and straight to the bar for a well deserved couple of beers before heading off to the curry house.

Thursday 30th May19

Fred and his bike were collected after breakfast and taken to the Suzuki deal in Newtown. The rest of the team set off to ride the flowing fantastic Newtown road in the sun with a dry road 😎

When we arrived Fred was not happy; the mechanic had taken a quick look and decided it was all too complicated, so back to square one! So Fred called up the rental company to ask for a new bike. They said they had no more bikes..Fred threw his toys out of the pram and told them to sort it out and find him a new bike. After several more calls they found one but said they had no transport; another tantrum from Fred convinced the guy to load up his trailer and drive the 4hr 30 from Bournemouth to Rhayader and then pick up the Vstrom from Newtown.. looking good! We went o the McDonalds across the road to celebrate 👍

To get Fred back to the hotel I took him on the back of my bike. I’ve never ridden with a 15st bear on the back before.. interesting experience 😱

We left Fred to drink beer while the rest of us headed to Devils Bridge over the Elan Valley mountain road, a cup of tea then the full loop of the picturesque Elan Valley.. everyone was happy in the sun 😁

• 

• 

• 

• 

Fred’s new bike turned up around 6pm; it was a red Triumph Sprint 1050, a “sport tourer”. The guy set off for Newtown, another 25 miles further on to pick up his broken Vstrom; then back to Bournemouth, probably at least a 10hr round trip!!

As soon as Fred sat on the Sprint I could tell he didn’t like the riding position, bars too low and foot pegs too high..Hmmm, still he had a bike to continue our trip with to Ireland the next morning 👍

I’m several days behind on the write up and posting so stay tuned to read what happened in Ireland.. LOTS!! 😱